


Summer in their Eyes

by mrsvc



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Camping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsvc/pseuds/mrsvc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to Menacherie's "Fast Times at Creature High." They do decide to go camping, eventually, and Monroe is pretty sure it is the worst idea they've ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer in their Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Menacherie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menacherie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [Menacherie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menacherie/pseuds/Menacherie). Log in to view. 



> Basically, this is fanfiction for fanfiction. I enjoyed my friend Menacherie's fic so much, I wanted to roll around in it a little myself. Unbeta'd.

They do decide to go camping, eventually, and Monroe is pretty sure it is the worst idea they've ever had. It wasn't necessarily that he begrudged the 'sleeping outdoors' part, nor the communing with nature thing; he's a Blutbad, that's generally their natural habitat. What he's worried about is the temptation of fresh blood in the forest, the lack of privacy, and the fact that they brought Hap.

Nick, of course, thinks the whole thing is fantastic. He slouches in the passenger seat of Monroe's Beetle, smiling like he's brilliant. "I can't believe you let Hap drive Marie's truck."

Nick's hair is just a little too long, falling into his eyes when he shoots Monroe a look. "I don't think Grimms can smell Blutbads."

"No, I'm talking about Hap behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle."

"He'll be fine," Nick smiles. "Besides, one of us here doesn't have a license yet."

"Don't bring that up," Monroe winces. "The whole dubious legality bit... I thought you wanted to be a cop." Monroe had felt awkward when Nick had been almost sixteen, looking up at him with those innocent blue eyes, in his soft leather jacket, and Monroe had felt his stomach flip. Now that they were officially a 'they', and Nick was fully sixteen, Monroe still felt a little bit like a dirty old man, already eighteen with graduation breathing down his neck.

"Dubious, that's a big word," Nick laughs, trailing his fingers down Monroe's arm and pulling his fingers off the wheel to wrap around his. "You drive like a grandpa."

Monroe places a kiss on Nick's knuckles before taking his hand back. "I drive _safely_."

\-----

It takes them two hours to get to the campsite, an hour talking to Hap on the phone to get him there after he got sidetracked by a 24-hour diner, and a solid twenty-five minutes worth of cursing (Monroe), confused direction reading (Nick), and a whole bag of potato skin chips (Hap) for them to set up the tent.

"Are we going fishing now? Let's go fishing now," Hap mumbles, spraying crumbles all down his front.

Monroe and Nick exchange a weary look. "We just got the tent up."

"Hey, whose idea was it to bring a tent, broseph?" Hap shoots back.

"Not all of us are big, bad Blutbads who are one with the forest, or whatever," Nick sighs.

"Yeah, some of us are very delicate Grimms with our arsenal of creature killing weaponry in a trailer our aunt hauls around the country," Monroe jokes.

"Ha, ha, ha, you're a funny guy. When it rains, you both are going to be sorry."

Hap pops open a beef jerky. "I'm sorry, I got lost in this conversation. Can we go fishing now? I'm starving."

Nick gathers up the fishing rods from the back of the truck while Monroe shakes his head disparagingly.

\----

"Does anyone else feel really lame right now? Like, really lame."

"I rebuild clocks from scratch and even I feel like a complete loser right now."

Nick pulls his line back in, the reel clicking slowly in the summer quiet. "Hap's asleep."

"Typical," Monroe snorts.

"And I like your clocks."

Monroe looks critically at Nick. It's a curious thing for him to say, and they both know it. "You called them creepy."

"Yeah, well-"

"You don't have to lie to me, Nick. You don't have to..." he trails off, searching for the right words and fiddling with his fishing rod. "That's not how this works, I guess. Us, I mean. I just- I don't want it all to be empty flattery. If you hate my clocks, that's fine, that's cool, okay? You don't have to- Just, never mind." It feels a little too honest, a little too insecure, and Monroe jumps up before Nick can say whatever he was going to; Monroe's scared to hear it anyway. "Look, just make sure Hap doesn't drown, okay?"

Monroe stalks off, accidentally kicking Hap's line off the log he'd propped it up on when he had fallen asleep. Hap gasps awake, shouting, "I caught something, I caught something!"

\-----

"So, trouble in Paradise?"

Nick breaks his gaze from the water to look over his shoulder at Hap. "What?"

Hap snorts, sways his fishing rod in the wind like he's conducting an orchestra only he can hear, and says, "you've got that look, dude."

"No, I don't," Nick mutters childishly.

"Yeah, bro, you do. Look, I know that I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp store or whatever. Doesn't mean I don't make enough light to see some things."

"That was actually, really deep, Hap."

"I try, it's part of my zen. It's an idea I've had. You want to invest? Never mind right now, we'll iron that out later. What I want to know is, why my two best dude-bros are getting all serious and frowny and not zen?"

Nick scrubs a hand through his hair and wonders when this became his life. He figures it had to be when Aunt Marie killed his old principle and they had to go underground for a little while. Nick's powers had kicked in and Marie had been hurt, and everything had just gone south fast. When everything had smoothed over with Aunt Marie's contacts, and Nick was comfortable with watching people's faces shift if he looked at them too closely, that's when he'd gone to his new school. Now, he was dating one Blutbad and having a surprisingly heavy, personal conversation with another one. Aunt Marie would be so disappointed. "I think I offended him?" Nick phrases it like a question because he's still mostly confused by the whole one-sided exchange.

"What'd you say?" Hap sounds like he's talking to a rather unfortunate child, which, hearing the stories Monroe's told him about Grimms, that's probably better than he deserved.

"I told him I liked his clocks!"

"You like his clocks? You told him you like his clocks. Oh, dude. Bro. Broheim. Brohatma Gandhi. Brohan Sebastian-"

"Okay, okay, I get it. What did I do wrong?"

"You _like_ his clocks."

Nick jumps away from the stump he'd been slouching dramatically against since Monroe had walked away. "Spell it out for the audience, Hap."

"You don't like his clocks, Nick. We've all heard you talk about how much you hate those clocks. Roddy and Barry and Juliette and Hank and Angelina and people who don't even live in Portland know that you bitch about his clocks whenever you get the chance."

"So, he thinks I lied to him?"

"No. Listen, is he your first real relationship? Because you are killing me here. Look, did you lie?"

"No!"

Hap threw his hands up in the air. "And there's your problem. You can pay me in beer." Nick just stares, hands thrown out to his sides. "You're going to be a great cop, you are dumb as a brick. He's mad because you said you liked his clocks, not that you liked him."

Nick doesn't move. "Wait, what?"

"You were deflecting, or at least, that's what our main man thought."

"I'm haven't understood a thing you've said. I'm going to go find him. Don't drown!"

"I can't drown, I've got to catch our dinner."

\-----

Monroe wasn't pouting. He was calmly thinking over his life choices in an organized and appropriate manner, detached from all emotion, and coming up with rational solutions. He was also eyeing Hap's beef jerky supply mournfully.

Monroe had been feeling itchy and young and insecure for months, ever since he and Nick had kissed in the back of his aunt's truck. His parents were acting disappointed and testy with him, wheedling him about college and careers and finding something to do beyond his clocks and hanging around with all these friends they'd never met.

And Nick; Nick was still a sophomore. Nick was so young, God, and Monroe was already so in love, it scared him. He loved the easy way Nick would drive around in the truck, his only, meek version of teenage rebellion, with sunglasses tipped low on his nose so he could sneak glances when he thought Monroe wasn't looking. He loved that Nick wanted to be a police officer, wanted to help people for the rest of his life.

What scared Monroe was losing Nick. More than graduation, more than a future and a career, and his pending adulthood and responsibility, he was scared to death that Nick would see the error of his ways and leave him alone with his clocks.

Unfortunately for Monroe, Nick didn't seem to know when to leave well enough alone. He unzips the tent and sits cross-legged at Monroe's feet, that curious expression on his face that had ruined Monroe's life more than once in recent memory. "Look," he starts, picking absently at a fingernail, "I'm taking advice from Hap here so just go with me, okay? Because I don't know what I said, but Hap says you don't think I like you and that I lied to you. So, I'm just going to- I like you, Monroe. A lot. I like your stupid sweaters and your big words and I like that you have found something to be passionate about in your life. Okay, so, the cuckoo clocks are creepy as hell, but if you like them, then I can too. Just, don't think that I don't like you because of the stupid clocks. Because I do. Like you, that is."

"You took advice from Hap?"

Nick glares at him. "That's what you took out of that? Because I kind of poured my heart out for you there and I'd really rather not relive the embarrassment."

Monroe sits up and grabs Nick's hand, pulling him forward to sprawl next to him on his sleeping bag. He buries his face in Nick's neck, mostly so he can say this without feeling too exposed, without letting Nick see the naked fear there. "I guess I'm just oversensitive. I keep... I just keep imagining everything you say is the last thing before you wake up and realize that you and me, that we don't work anymore. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a defeatist."

Nick snorts. "I knew that."

"Shut up," Monroe nuzzles against his cheek.

"You know, I can't make any promises. Aunt Marie might drag me across the country tomorrow, for all we know. But I can tell you this," Nick pulls back and looks Monroe in the eye. "I'm happy. Can you believe that?"

Monroe stares back, at the high flush across Nick's cheeks and the way his eyes seem to get even bigger when he's being overly earnest, and the feel of his fingers twisted in the fabric of Monroe's flannel. "Yes," he whispers.

"Good." Nick hooks two fingers in Monroe's belt and tugs him over closer, pulling their mouths together for a kiss. Monroe runs his hands over Nick's arms, trying to soak it all up to remember the next time the world felt too small again.

"Dinner, bros!"

Monroe groans, resting his forehead against Nick's. "Remind me who invited him."

"Hey, he's your best friend," Nick teases, knowing full well this was all his fault.

"Oh, what does that make you, then?" Monroe jokes back.

"Yours."

Monroe surges in for another kiss, unable to let that pass by, giving in to the desire to never let Nick go. Nick practically keens in response, arching forward, and digging his fingers into Monroe's arms. "He can probably hear us," Nick pants in Monroe's ear.

"Obviously. He can probably smell us, too."

"Ugh," Nick moans, disgusted. "Gross. Whose idea was this again?"

"Only two more days," Monroe quips, stealing one last kiss before tilting his head towards to flap. "Wanna go see if he caught an actual fish?"

"It's probably a tire." He takes Monroe's hand in his, kissing his knuckles in a mimic of that morning, and smiles.


End file.
